fandom history & other thoughts

Sorry about this being a bit late!

Dear Chocolate Box Writer,

First of all, thank you so much for writing for me! I'm sure I'll love whatever you come up with. Feel free to take these prompts as just suggestions--I trust you.

Some general likes: I like AUs, especially fun ones set in different worlds, and I enjoy fluff, casefic (or short slices from casefic, like the moment when they catch the murderer), and happy endings.

Some general DNWs: I would prefer not to receive animal abuse or smut for this exchange.

Brooklyn Nine Nine:

I requested Amy/Jake, Amy & Rosa, and Rosa & Jake.

Something I would like to see in general with any characters would be a space cops AU. I feel like it would be a lot of fun. Going into specifics:

Amy/Jake: I would love to see them meeting for the first time or solving their first case together, since we first meet the team when they all already know each other and are used to working together. Seeing Amy and Jake begin to develop that dynamic would be fun.

I would also like to see how they interact on cases after they start dating. They're both really competitive, which I think could create an interesting balance between their personal lives and work lives.

I also feel like it would be hilarious if they adopted a random pet Amy wasn't allergic to, like Clyde the turtle from Elementary. I think the two of them trying to be pet parents would be a mess, but a hilarious one. If you follow this prompt, please make sure they do manage to take proper care of the animal, though!

Rosa & Jake:

Again, I think it would be interesting to see what Rosa and Jake were like before we saw them on screen. Maybe a scene from their lives at the Academy? I can imagine them making a lot of stupid bets.

Alternatively, I enjoy the episodes where one of the characters spends a lot of time trying to figure out a specific thing from Rosa's personal life. I would like to see Jake finding out something completely random and possibly really sensitive, like that Rosa volunteers at an animal shelter or helps little old ladies cross the street.

Amy & Rosa:

I just love these two a lot, and I love seeing their interactions. I don't really have any specific prompts for them because I can't make up my mind on what I would like to see the most. Maybe a scene from them working a case together or a conversation at the bar?

Bad Blood:

Catastrophe/Knockout: I like the idea of a slow burn relationship between these two. Maybe a scene from them sparring as they get to know each other, like they're sparring their way to being friends?

I would also love to see what exactly the Academy is training them for. I imagine them as kind of Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (and themselves), so maybe something like art thievery would work well for that.

Catastrophe/Domino: I love the idea of these two riding motorcycles and kicking ass in general.

If the two of them went after Arsyn and exacted revenge, I would love to read about that.

Castle

Hayley Shipton/Alexis Castle: Alexis is my favorite character on the show, and I love the relationship she's developing with Hayley. I would love to see more of their mentor/mentee relationship, maybe with Hayley counseling Alexis on a case?

A darker way to go with this would be one of them getting kidnapped (preferably Alexis, but I'm flexible) and the other going out of their mind with worry trying to find them. We generally see Hayley very put together, but I would like to see how panicking over Alexis' well-being would shake her. This would be an interesting foil to Castle's panic when Alexis was taken to Paris as well.

I also think that the two of them teaming up for a prank war against Castle would be hilarious, and I feel like the two of them would be able to win pretty easily.

Kate Beckett/Richard Castle: I would love to see the two of them on a date, just hanging out and generally being silly together. If you want to write this, please set it before their breakup, since I want to see how the show deals with them healing after that.

I would also like fix-it fic that deals with everything Kate has been keeping from him and doesn't paint her as innocent. She has done a lot of terrible things to him over the course of the season so far and I would like to see that addressed.

Thank you so much!

I last updated this blog in August, when... things were different, I guess. For one thing, it was still summer break and I hadn't really had to come to terms with the fact that I'm a senior. A senior! Me! Ridiculous.

I'm... I'm confused, I guess. I keep a journal and write there a lot but for some reason this seems like something I would rather put on the internet in the hopes that some stranger sees it and sheds some light on the reason I feel like this. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a side effect of being a teenager.

So, here goes some honesty that is probably arranged really weirdly:

1. Theater is performative and I do a lot of it. I do so much and play so many different roles (not just characters; I play a lot of roles in the community) that sometimes I forget where I end and theater begins. It is very weird to not know who you are all of the time because you can't tell yourself apart from the character you've been playing daily for three months. But then again, I guess I've played the character of myself for seventeen years.

2. I really hate my IB philosophy class. I really, really hate it. But dropping it seems like failure. I've never dropped a class. I switched from photography to theater on the first day of school freshman year, but that's the closest I've come.

3. One of my friends went through some Shit that she never really told me about, and now she's moved and I am relatively certain that I'm never gonna see her again.

4. I haven't slept past 6:30 for a month.

So, I guess that topped with a nice dose of anxiety is why I've been stressing. It's nice to just get it out there. Thanks, internet. I'll be back with a nice dose of grudgewank soon.

I wrote this months ago. Take it how you will.

Content on Clare and her former fandom activities is disappearing rapidly, and over the past few months I have alternately searched eagerly for this information and avoided it and any mention of the subject as much as possible.

When I was a freshman in high school, my best friend offered me a copy of Clare's book and said I absolutely had to read it. I knew a little about Clare, but nothing entirely damning. By the time I entered fandom, her exploits had been mostly forgotten, and those who remembered were often silenced by her team of crack lawyers (a team that, oddly, did not involve Heidi8, her famous fandom pitbull lawyer. The divide between these two that has come to light eludes me and my research, although I'm sure there are those more dedicated to searching for it than me).

The most common complaint against Clare is that she is a plagiarist. This is true, and is outlined clearly in a post by a user named Avocado (although journalfen, the site where this is hosted, is currently down, there is a post about this on fanlore). Clare claimed that the quotes from popular shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Red Dwarf, as well as many others, were just "games" for her fans to find. However, Avocado found damning evidence, and submitted it to the fanfiction site where Clare's Draco Dormiens was hosted. Clare was found guilty of plagiarizing entire scenes from Pamela Dean's The Secret Country. From here, the story becomes much harder to follow, due in part to the loss of many groups and forums where this information was posted. Years later, Avocado posted her story, and details the various accounts Clare and her friends used to hide the plagiarism. For example, Clare claimed that she had written the passages down years before in a writing journal, and later found them and believed they were her own. Avocado was skeptical, and her account is the best place to find information on this subject.

Overall, fandom forgave Clare, and she later was able to get a full book deal out of the Draco Trilogy. Her published series are infamous among many fans for copying scenes almost word from word from her fanfiction, although the plagiarized sections were all cut. Nicely enough, she named this trilogy, the Mortal Instruments, after her Ron and Ginny incest fanfiction (I would link to this, but I'm trying not to get this post taken down immediately. I'm sure you can find it yourself. Also, I hope I never, ever have to see that story again, dear lord). Of course, there were still her bitter detractors--but her loyal fans soon silenced them, and even ran some out of fandom.

But Claire, you ask, why do I care? How on earth does Cassandra Clare's history as a plagiarist and a bully affect me?

I'm glad you asked. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't. It does not matter. This doesn't affect your life, or mine. The thing is, she hasn't stopped. Plagiarism, sure. I haven't seen any proof of it in her published works--although, that may be because repercussions are far, far worse once you're making money off of something... If you want to read about her bullying, and about how she hasn't stopped, try here or here for relatively recent twitter and tumblr shenanigans. Overall, though, documenting over ten years of Clare and fandom is far, far too much for one blog post--you could almost write a novel about the woman.

Maybe all of this means nothing, and maybe it's too disorganized to follow (and such is the price we pay for so much of fandom history being lost), but I think Clare's story serves as a warning against BNFs (Big Name Fans) and how they can lead to strife and discontent within a fandom. Whether you love Clare or hate her, she's here to stay (and so are all of her stories, easily available online. Yes, even the incest).

From journal based platforms to Tumblr, there was a large change. On Tumblr, it is far harder to organize a fandom, or multiple fandoms, to get large-scale projects done. The lack of comments is one thing that makes this difficult, and Tumblr fandom tends to be more scattered than LJ or previous incarnations were, because there are just so many blogs out there, and it's very easy to become multi-fandom and find a blog that has many of the same fandoms as you. I once saw someone express that they find it unlikely that something like the Organization for Transformative Works could be formed through Tumblr, and I have to say that I agree.

But that doesn't mean people don't try.

DashCon 2014 came from an idea that, as far as I know, had been posted and then reblogged for ages without anything being done about it. Tumblr users wanted a convention by them and for them. There were a lot of jokes made about the idea, primarily from older bloggers, but the idea went forward despite criticisms. Many involved in the planning stages said that a lot of the disasters were caused by shoddy planning, as was predicted by these older bloggers. Some people just don't plan before they spend thousands of dollars.

In July of 2014, DashCon 2014 was born. Bloggers headed to Illinois for the con, including two of my friends. The rest of Tumblr sat back to watch.

Dashcon, which was born as Tumblecon (Tumblr did not wish to be affiliated with it, which proved to be a wise move) and was crowdfunded on IndieGoGo and allowed people to preregister. The start-up had made a deal with the hotel they were staying at to pay gradually throughout the con as more people entered. However, the DashCon staff gathered all of the attendees into a room to break the bad news to them--someone from the staff of the hotel said that the con needed to pay $17,000 in advance or be kicked out of the hotel. The management of the hotel denied requiring this when asked, and denies it to this day. They asked the attendees for this money. I believe they claimed that people would get their money back after the con, or they later began to give it back once people complained. Either way, the majority of the money taken was in cash, and DashCon staff was not good at keeping track of who donated money and how much they donated.

The suspicious demand for $17,000 was not the only trouble the con faced. On Tumblr (because of course) reports began to surface that minors were getting into 18+ panels and that staff was not checking. This included minors getting into panels on BDSM and other topics of a sexual nature. Also, several creators left early, including Noelle Stevenson (pseud Gingerhaze, known for Lumberjanes) because Dashcon could not pay for their rooms. The Welcome to Nightvale panel was also canceled for similar reasons. Those who had paid extra to attend were offered an extra hour in the ballpit, which was a child's pool filled with balls. This has spawned many memes, as well as rumors that someone peed in the ballpit and other nasty occurrences involving it.

Dashcon 2015 has been canceled. Fandom marches on.

okay so, both of my parents are archivists. this has left me with an interest in preserving the online culture i take part in, especially since tumblr (which i'm told is the hip new place for fandom) doesn't provide an easy way to find old entries or protect content.
so.
i'm returning to old style journaling at least long enough to protect the current norms of fandom and try to explain how tumblr fandom (the only fandom i've really ever know, tbh) works. hopefully i'll be able to do this from an outsider's perspective. i'll be using an anthropological basis for what i write here, mostly because that's a good starting point.
i'll be hoping to cover everything from huge multifandom happenings (such as dashcon 2014 or the many other ridiculous kerfluffles) to things i notice in my main fandoms (hp seems to have the most wank... does anything ever change? the taylor swift fandom is also bad).
so, you can find me on tumblr as feministlilyevans if you want to discuss fandom or cats or want me to research something there.
sorry about the awkward intro, but hopefully things will pick up from there! especially once journalfen goes back up and i have access to fandom wank again as a jumping off point for research.